The manufacturing of a barrel section of an aircraft fuselage may involve placing a plurality of uncured or precured composite stringers in a corresponding plurality of grooves extending axially along a surface of a rotatable layup mandrel. Multiple plies of composite material may then be laid up over the layup mandrel and stringers as the layup mandrel is rotated to form a skin over the stringers. After layup is complete, the layup mandrel may be moved into an autoclave for applying heat and pressure to the composite material for co-curing or co-bonding the skin and stringers together to form a cured composite barrel section. The barrel section may be cut along an axial direction on each of opposing sides of the layup mandrel to form a pair of relatively rigid, semi-cylindrical skin panels.
The engagement of the stringers within the grooves may prevent each skin panel from being lifted off of the layup mandrel. Removal of the skin panels may therefore require disassembly of the mandrel body which may be formed of a plurality of mandrel sections. However, disassembling the layup mandrel can be a time-consuming operation. In addition, forming the layup mandrel as a plurality of mandrel sections can add to the cost and complexity of the layup mandrel.
As can be seen, there exists a need in the art for a system and method of removing a workpiece (e.g., a skin panel) from a manufacturing fixture (e.g., a layup mandrel) that avoids the need for disassembling the manufacturing fixture.